This is the conclusion to an MLive series on the history of Monroe Center that explains how 180 years of change on the city’s main drag have shaped the street we know today, as well as the greater downtown.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — What’s next for Monroe Center?

After decades of high vacancy along the historical retail hub of Grand Rapids, occupancy is peaking in buildings that were largely forgotten in the 1970s and '80s.

Downtown and city officials speak highly of the economic health of Monroe Center, a main street that has been grappling with declining shopping dollars for much of the past half-century.

Aside from the closing of Van Hoecks Shoes this fall after 70 years as a downtown mainstay, officials see the street as rebounding economically. Today, Monroe Center boasts a stronger commercial picture, which is expected to continue to improve as several redevelopment projects bloom in 2013 and the coming years.

“The fact that we have so many of the upper floors occupied that were vacant for decades is really important because now you’re starting to build in a density of residents and office tenants that can help support that retail on the ground floor,” said Suzanne Schulz, planning director for the city of Grand Rapids.

“If you don’t have that concentration, nothing else works.”

Retail study finds pent-up market demand

A leading national retailing consultant, Robert Gibbs, finished a downtown study this fall that concludes there’s pent-up demand in the area for several of the retail amenities downtown residents have pined for — namely, “a grocery store, a junior department store and an urban format department store.”

Gibbs said the Monroe Center and north downtown areas should capture a larger share of the region’s retail sales, and could support another several hundred square feet of retail and restaurant space.

The Birmingham, Mich.-based consultant — who was involved in discussions on reopening the failed pedestrian mall — noted that the Peck Building’s MoDiv retail incubator concept on Monroe Center appears to be working and suggested the majority of future retail space ought to be deployed for similar concepts.

The lack of new downtown retailers among one of “the most attractive and walkable” cities in the Midwest, Gibbs concluded, was largely due to non-market reasons including “parking, lack of real estate inventory, ineffective marketing campaigns and a bias by community real estate brokers and policy makers to discourage national chains in the downtown.”

The greater Grand Rapids area is “an under-served retail market filled with significant expansion opportunities.” That demand could be met by downtown retailers, Gibbs concluded in his report, which is still being digested following a fall presentation to the Grand Rapids Downtown Development Authority.

“The challenge, I think for retail, is to make sure it’s authentic; that it’s not too touristy,” said Schulz. “It has to be for the conventioners, but also for everyone already here.”

More mixed-use space is on the way

Although space is scarce on Monroe Center for new construction — the only surface parking lot with street frontage is the Ellis lot across from Rosa Parks Circle — there are two sizable redevelopments under way that will include new retail space.

After sitting crumbling for years, the long-vacant Kendall Building is getting new life in 2013 as a mixed-use building in conjunction with a DDA project to improve Monument Park.

And next year, developers expect construction to begin on the last major vacant building along Monroe Center, the 13-story Morton House, a hulking 91-year-old building on the northwest corner of Monroe and Ionia NW that closed in 2011 after years as subsidized housing for low-income residents.

Owned by RDV Corp., an investment and holding company for the family of Amway co-founder Rich DeVos, the Morton House once rivaled the Pantlind Hotel, now part of the Amway complex, as the city's plushest spot for business travelers.

The corner has historically been a site for travelers to find a bed, dating back to the original National Hotel, destroyed by a fire in 1872. The replacement structure was called the Morton House after proprietor George B. Morton and was greatly expanded upon in the 1880s before today's building was constructed.

In 2004, Rockford, a partner in MoDiv, convinced Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to relocate 300 employees from the suburbs into the former Steketee’s building, a $7.5 million redevelopment investment which Blue Cross CEO Dan Loepp last year called “one of the greatest business moves this company has made in the last 15 years.”

The Morton House project is still in the planning stages, said Hassberger, but the company’s plan currently calls for retail use on the first two floors, with five or six floors of office space under market-rate residential apartments in the upper floors.

All told, there would be about 300 building users.

“I think bringing activity to that corner and that number of new people into the marketplace is going to be a huge plus for everybody,” he said.

Up the street, renovations are busy taking place inside the Kendall Building, a 130-year-old structure that 616 Development owner Derek Coppess purchased this year for $775,000 from James Azzar, who had owned the building since 1991.

The building has sat vacant and crumbling behind a chain link fence for years.

This month, the state approved a $475,000 Community Revitalization Program grant for Coppess’ “Lofts at the Kendall” project, which will include retail and commercial space underneath market rate apartments. The city also granted the project a 10-year property tax break valued at $220,000.

The project follows the “24-hour building” design Coppess has adopted at other projects downtown, including 616 Lofts on Ionia, a mixed-use project completed this fall at 1 and 7 Ionia Ave. SW above the new Grand Rapids Brewing Co.

That’s ‘just a portion’ of happenings

Such residential growth lends a neighborhood-like feeling of safety and security to Monroe Center and is one of the single most important variables in building a successful and vibrant downtown, said Kris Larson, new director of the city’s Downtown Development Authority.

Combined, the Morton House and the Kendall Building redevelopments will add more than 100 households to the immediate area, which Larsen estimated could add about $2.5 million in annual spending dollars to be captured by the area’s downtown retailers.

“That’s just a portion of what’s happening on Monroe Center,” he said.

At Rosa Parks Circle, an area traditionally known as Campau Square, the soaring Grand Rapids National Bank lobby space on the second floor of McKay Tower is undergoing a renovation project. In 2013, the new building owners are planning to open the space as a ballroom facility.

That follows the successful transformation of the old Michigan National Bank lobby space up the street into a ballroom facility attached to the new CityFlats Hotel, which in turn transformed the former Fox Jewelers Building into a boutique hotel with the City Sen Lounge adding some ground floor nightlife to the street.

“That’s a new opportunity for wedding parties of 150 or so to crowd into Monroe Center and create that unexpected sense of vibrancy that cities deliver,” said Larson.

In the daytime, that serendipitous interaction with decisions-makers walking the street is what CWD Real Estate managing partner Sam Cummings refers to as “accidental deal flow.”

Cummings, whose company recently has been snapping up key pieces of downtown real estate, said the central business district area is approaching a critical mass despite the lack of downtown retail anchors.

“Monroe Center for what it is, is headed in the right direction,” he said. The area is cleaned up and has a good mix of service retail. Great strides have been made in the last decade and “now there’s a little staying power” from some of the stores on the street.

“I’m extremely enthusiastic about the next five years,” he said. “What’s going to happen in our city is extraordinary, both downtown and in the near neighborhoods.”

Blocks adjacent to Monroe Center, like this odd-shaped lot at Fulton and Ionia, are poised for development as the commercial picture of downtown improves.Garret Ellison | MLive.com

Schulz said that in the blocks adjacent to Monroe Center, new building is starting to be discussed after a lull while development focused on repurposing existing space.

“I think in the next five to 10 years, lots of new construction projects will be proposed,” she said, and planners will be tasked with ensuring the plans intelligently connect new development to existing retail and activity nodes such as Monroe Center and the Arena District.

Larson said the DDA this year expanded the scope of a planned improvement project at Monument Park to include the adjacent Veterans’ Memorial Park. At Monument Park, named after the Civil War memorial statue there, a streetscape reconstruction will occur in conjunction with the Kendall Building project.

The tired sidewalk along Monument Park is the last remnant of the old Monroe pedestrian mall, which was reopened to traffic in 2000. The park project will tie the area aesthetically into Monroe Center, said Larson, giving visitors unfamiliar with the area more to explore.

“Monroe Center will grow a little bit and reach farther to the southeast,” he said. “You’re going to end up with a main street bounded by two amazing public spaces.”